Exact same games for me, I started with dead cells and a hundred hours in was like well I guess I do like roguelites after all, Even though I had always thought I didn’t.

And then I played Hades and was absolutely blown away, I love the stories inside and the action.

Boy, if you’re considering hollow knight, you will have zero regrets, it’s so fun and so eerie.

Soulslikes still make me yawn in comparison, dead souls 1, 2 and elden ring.

Maybe one day

I went on a similar journey but instead of being pulled back in by hades, for me it was risk of rain 2. Now I’ve played risk of rain returns, hollow knight, and I’m just starting to get better at noita. Dead cells and hades have been on my radar for years, just haven’t had time to pull the trigger on them yet

Risk of Rain & Risk of Rain 2 are a couple of my favorites. Have sunk a fuck load of hours into 2 over the years. Mostly solo, but multiplayer is great fun as well imo.

You got some big ones. Just know what sorts of games you like to play and look for well reviewed roguelikes in those genres.

I think the problem you may have had before is that you mistook roguelike for its own pure genre, when in the modern sense it’s actually a game format and platform for gameplay, and the gameplay can be anything, from turn based to action, 2d to 3d. Traditional roguelikes like nethack are a genre, but roguelites/roguelikes nowadays can play like anything.

Personally in the FPS roguelike department I’ve been really enjoying Roboquest.

Y’all, Metroidvanias are not Rouguelikes. Randomly generated levels are an essential element for a game to be a Rouguelike, and fixed levels you can memorize are an equally essential feature of a Metroidvania.

Two very charming (and not too expensive) roguelite games I haven’t seen in the comments yet are Blazing Beaks and Dicey Dungeons… I played them on the Switch, but I’m sure they can also be purchased through Steam etc.

In Blazing Beaks, you play different birds with different characteristics and shoot your way through various levels while collecting useful items and annoying debuffs/handicaps like for example, “you cannot shoot while you run” or “every coin you collect deals 1 damage” These debuffing items are the core mechanic - you can collect and exchange them for some really nice stuff that helps you in the long run. Lovely pixel art and really great as a 2 player local coop!

Dicey Dungeons is a little hidden gem where you play as a little dice character and have to fight turn-based encounters in order to escape the dungeon of Fortuna. The mechanics are quite simple: Roll some dice and use them to deal out damage, shield yourself, poison your enemy etc. For example, you might start with a weapon that says “deal X damage points”, so if you roll a 4 and insert it into the weapon slot, the enemy takes 4 damage points. There are a handful of different characters that all work differently (my personal favourite is the roboter where you have to gamble if you want to roll another dice to use in attacks, because once you roll too high, you lose the dice you already rolled for this round). Also, each character has a handful of different modes/rule sets so it doesn’t get repetitive. Bonus points for a pretty art style, charming enemies and some catchy tunes!

Btw, Hollow Knight is not a roguelite but a metroidvania since the levels, items and encounters are not randomized and unique in every play through, but it is absolutely worth playing!

I don’t know rogue-lites too well, but I know Hollow Knight quite well, and I know Sekiro very, very well. Hollow Knight is the best 2D game I’ve ever played, and I think it’s worth at least checking out. The music, the art, the atmosphere, everything is really well done. For less than $10 it’s worth trying for 2 hours and if you don’t like it you can always refund it.

As for Sekiro, I think it’s got the best gameplay of any game ever. That being said, it has a very steep learning curve. Eventually the game will click, but until then it’ll be incredibly frustrating and very difficult. Once you get past that though it’ll feel amazing to play. Every one of my friends gave up on it before it clicked for them so there is definitely some risk but I truly believe if you push through until it clicks you’ll find it incredibly rewarding and satisfying to play.

If you like Hollow Knight and Sekiro, Nine Sols is another game I’d recommend. Kind of a combination of the two, the 2D traversal and game mechanics of HK, with the unforgiving parry heavy combat of Sekiro.

That’s cool! Always cool to read when someone finds an entry point to broadening their gaming horizons!

I’d highly recommend

• Enter the Gungeon
• Nuclear Throne
• FTL

The top two are fun frantic top-down shooters where you can feel yourself getting better between runs, barring terrible RNG luck of course. (But fighting against the odds is cool too.)

FTL is just a very “tight” experience. I’m sure other games have perhaps improved on its principles but it’s focused and knows exactly what it wants to be.

People have mentioned almost all the good options. You’ll find gems within these. I’ve absolutely loved Curse of the Dead Gods, Balatro, FTL, Blazing Beaks, Slay the Spire. I haven’t liked some really well loved recommendations like Children of Morta and Moonlighter.

Roguelites have been great for me because of a number of factors. Handhelds like the Switch and Steam Deck have really helped. When I had kids, I needed something I could pause when interrupted, and then get straight back into. With little bits of fragmented time, a roguelite is great for getting some progress and experiencing a power curve and good progress (whereas in long story driven single player games, there wouldn’t be much progress to be had in half an hour). Roguelites have been underrated, and I feel like we’ve really had a golden era of roguelites over the past decade.

Ok, sticking to roguelikes, here’s some other options:

Deckbuilding Style: Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Griftlands, Balatro

Survivor/Bullet-Heaven Style: Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor

Realtime Combat (I’d put Hades/Dead Cells here): Hand of Fate 1/2, Zero Sievert, Wall World, Rogue Legacy 1/2, Risk of Rain 1/2, Heroes of Hammerwatch

FPS: Gunfire Reborn, Roboquest

Turn-based/Pausable: FTL, The Last Spell, Loop Hero, Dungeons of Dredmor, Darkest Dungeon 1/2, Backpack Hero, Into the Breach, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2

Sure I missed some other good stuff.

Not a roguelike but if you liked the combat style of Hades, check out Bastion.

I would highly recommend Rogue Legacy 2 over Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight is more of just a metroidvania, it’s great, but didnt satisfy that rogue like itch for me.

I really liked enter the gungeon. It was one of the first roguelites I played. It’s fairly basic in terms of mechanics compared to some newer entries in the genre. But it’s just good arcadey fun. Bonus is that it runs on a lot of systems. It’s still one of my go to’s for plane trips or other offline scenarios

If a 2D tarkov-esque extraction shooter roguelite sounds interesting, check out Zero Sievert. I recommend playing on Hunter difficulty (lose all carried equipment & loot on death) for the real extraction shooter experience.

Other Note: You’re not going to like 5BC in Dead Cells because the game mechanic it introduces (Malaise) requires you to play fast or the game gets way harder.

Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time. It’s tough though, and you will feel lost and “where the fuck am I supposed to go?”.

I recommend that new players install the mod manager and enable “free” Gathering Swarm and Wayword Compass charms mods. Frees up 2 charm slots for two QoL charms – those two free slots will make the midgame a tad easier.